England's premier players put on register for daily drug tests

England stars are to be placed on a 30-man register to be targeted by UK Sport
dope-testers.

Fronting up: England's top players face regular drug tests as the Football Association joins up with UK SportPhoto: GETTY IMAGES

By Henry Winter

12:25AM GMT 31 Oct 2008

Other Premier League players will also be on the list and must provide details of their whereabouts for one hour of every day, including holidays. If the player is not at that location on three occasions when the testers call, he faces a year's ban.

Although UK Sport do not believe football has a drugs problem, they are keen to deter anyone considering taking proscribed substances. "We are not these evil regulators that just want to make life difficult for footballers,'' stressed Andy Parkinson, UK Sport's Head of Operations for a Drug-Free Sport. "We are trying to protect their sport.

"Athletics and cycling have been tainted in a big way by anti-doping. The last thing we want is for football to be in that position where it didn't focus on it [anti-doping] enough, didn't put the controls in place, and suddenly finds a sport with a fantastic profile in a crisis."

The identity of the 30, who could face five or more tests a year from July 1 next year, will be decided by UK Sport and the FA but Parkinson has certain criteria in mind. "We could cut the cake in terms of the top 15 athletes [players] in the Premier League, or the England team, or the England youth team. We'd review the pool. Say we called up the England squad, it is fluid so you could have an athlete coming from left field suddenly being selected by the England manager.

"We'll take into account behaviour of athletes in the past, long-term injuries where maybe they disappeared to Eastern Europe for six months to get an injury sorted or if they have had a doping violation against them."

Related Articles

If a footballer refuses to be on the list, UK Sport and the FA can take sanctions. "They are bound by their rules," Parkinson said. "There would be a big public stigma." The FA know they will need to persuade footballers that being on the list could make them appear ambassadors in the fight against drugs in sport.

Club managers, though, are concerned about losing players to bans and UK Sport are aware that many footballers are not the most organised.

"We are dealing with people from a different world [sport] so we have to adapt our education programme to support them," Parkinson said. "It's going to be a change in culture. I am not too sure if they are fully aware of the requirement. We have to sit down with the PFA and say this is what the FA and the UK Sport have agreed."

Football needs to listen because the World Anti-Doping Agency have made their punishments stronger. Rio Ferdinand was suspended for eight months when he failed to keep a date with the dope-testers at Manchester United's training ground in 2003. "We have to be clear: Rio would get two years now for a refusal," Parkinson said. "Rio had been notified he needed to supply a sample. Under the [new] code, we'd call that a refusal or a failure to comply which is a standard two-year ban."

Football must learn the subtle difference between refusals and missed tests under the 'whereabouts'' rule, as UK Sport deem Ferdinand's offence worse than Christina Ohuruogu's failure to be in a specified place on three occasions. "It [Ferdinand's case] is entirely different from Chris and her one-year ban for three missed tests."

Now the nation's elite players face up to the 'whereabouts' challenge that Ohuruogu failed. "They will have to supply us [with info on] where they are residing, their home address, a regular training schedule and their competition schedule.

"Most of our athletes do six to seven in the morning. They know they will be there and you can always provide a sample at 6am. If they are not there, it is a missed test. They can text, phone, email, log on to an online system and change their whereabouts up to one minute before the hour starts. We understand people have busy and changeable lives. They can delegate authority to their individual agents, who can access the system, but if the agent mucks it up it is a missed test."

The 30 will also be tested during the closed season. "At the moment they have licence to take anything they want in the summer because they disappear off our radar," Parkinson said. "I'm not arguing they do but when England didn't qualify for the Euro Championship, they didn't reappear for six weeks later before pre-season training. They could have done anything. Now they could be in Barbados, and we can test them."

Players will not be tested for cocaine in the off-season as "it is a stimulant that only stays in your system for a short period of time", but it will be tested for during the season. Creatine is not banned.

The main drugs UK Sport test for are "substances that return them [players] from injury quicker, even something as simple as having a gluco-corticose steroid jab to get the athlete on the pitch quicker". Parkinson added: "Anything that increases your stamina, whether it be over 90 minutes or a 10-month season – like EPO. Stimulants at the start of a game could increase your intensity. Growth hormones enable you to train harder, stronger."